


Right Where You Left Me

by julietophelia



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, post Chapter Eighty: Purgatorio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29544363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julietophelia/pseuds/julietophelia
Summary: Jughead waited for Toni to excuse herself so he could sit down again and sulk in solitude until he figured out where the hell he was going to sleep tonight. She didn’t.post 5x04
Relationships: Jughead Jones & Toni Topaz, Jughead Jones/Toni Topaz
Kudos: 18





	Right Where You Left Me

**Author's Note:**

> au after 5x04/written before 5x05

Betty was the first to leave. She made some excuse about wanting to check in with her mom, and then Veronica chimed in that her bed at the Five Seasons was getting cold. They all had to get up to let them out. Archie peeled off to wherever Archie was staying, which left Jughead standing there awkwardly with a very pregnant Toni Topaz. It was cliché, but she was glowing.

Jughead waited for Toni to excuse herself so he could sit down again and sulk in solitude until he figured out where the hell he was going to sleep tonight. She didn’t.

“Where are you off to, Jones?” Toni asked, straight to the point as he remembered her.

He sighed. “You wouldn’t happen to have a guest room, would you?”

“It’s taken, by me. Kevin, Fangs and I have a place down on Cloverfield. Couch isn’t too bad, though.”

“I’m sure I’ve had worse. Is there anyone…” He looked meaningfully at her belly. “Else you live with?”

“Wow.” Toni laughed. “You just want to know if I’m single, huh?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. Are you, though?”

“Being eight months pregnant tends to intimidate people.” She nodded towards the window. “Come on.”

He wasn’t about to question the only available mode of transportation when she directed him to get on the back of her motorcycle, even if it didn’t seem the safest idea in her condition. The ride over was nearly pitch black. Two out of every three streetlights were broken, and even the ones that worked were dim and flickered like they were about to give out.

They crunched to a halt on the gravel lot in front of a shabby apartment building.

“You just missed Fangs and Sweet Pea, I’m afraid,” she said as she led him to a first floor unit. “They both headed out on jobs tonight.”

“That’s okay. Sounds like I’m going to be here a while, from what Archie said.”

Archie with his big plans. Only back in town for a day and already putting on his cape to save the town yet again.

Toni slipped the key into the lock. “Why did you come?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t look very happy to see anyone.”

He shrugged. “Archie called.”

It was the call he’d been waiting for ever since that day in Pop’s. They’d all surely had good reason not to come, especially Archie. The army didn’t let you come and go as you liked. It had been a silly, typical Archie idea to think they’d be able to drop their lives and split a couple milkshakes at the Chock’lit Shoppe.

But he’d thought Archie might call.

“I feel like I’ve been sitting in that booth for six years,” he said softly, mostly to himself.

He’d listened for hours while Archie talked about budgets, and the school, and rabid dogs in the street. The whole time there’d been a stupid, selfish question trapped in the back of his throat. _Did you ever think about me?_

Toni raised an eyebrow and studied him for a moment, then she opened the door, and they stepped inside. “I’m gonna make a cup of tea. Want one?”

“Sure.”

“Kev?” she called out as she passed by a closed door. There was no response, even though light shone through the crack underneath. “He gets kind of moody when Fangs is away,” she said quietly.

He followed Toni into the tiny kitchen and sat at the round table shoved into the corner while Toni put a kettle of water on the stove. She took a pair of mugs down from the cabinet and grabbed the box of tea sitting on the counter.

“Those trucking jobs, is there an opening?”

Toni joined him at the table. “You want back in with the Serpents.” Her voice had an edge to it.

“More or less, yeah.”

“You’ve been gone for seven years, Jones. Now you need help and you come running?”

“Isn’t that why all of us joined the Serpents?” He studied the pattern of the yellowed linoleum. “I really don’t have anywhere, Toni. Or anyone.”

Her expression softened when he met her eyes again. “We have a hard enough time as it is finding gigs for everyone, but Tabitha’s hiring upstairs. She sounded pretty desperate, actually, last I talked to her. Probably more your speed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She smiled. The kettle started to whistle. He stood, but Toni stopped him with a look and went back to the stove to take care of it.

“I read it, you know,” she said, her back to him. “Your Outsiders knock off about the Serpents.”

“Wow.” He laughed. “I’d ask what you thought of it, but I don’t think I have to.”

“No, it wasn’t bad, really.” She took the kettle off the burner and poured hot water into the mugs. “I kind of wanted to see if I was in it.

“It’s not a one-to-one translation. I do have some creativity.”

“Still, that viper girl with the purple hair was pretty badass.”

“Yeah, she is.” She’d always been self-assured, but she’d grown into herself. She seemed like she had everything together.

She grinned at him over her shoulder, then turned back and kept her gaze fixed on the steeping mugs. “I guess I wanted to know what you thought about me. If you thought about me.”

He stepped towards her. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch.”

Toni shrugged. “I could’ve called. It’s just what happens, you know? People move away, drift apart.” She turned to lean back against the counter.

All he’d done was drift. A pink braid had fallen into her face, and he brushed it aside.

“What are you doing, Jones?”

“Paying tribute to my queen?” He took her hand and raised it to her lips, kissed the silver snake coiled around her finger. Toni rolled her eyes, but she smiled.

“You are a hot mess.”

“Hot, though?”

Toni kissed him, her hands cupping his face. They broke apart, their hurried breath mingling between them. She brushed her thumb over his cheek. There was something sad in her eyes, and he didn’t think it was pity. Maybe she was lonely, too.

“I was always a sucker for you, Jones.” Their lips brushed together, and Toni pulled him close again.

They never drank the tea.

An alarm woke him after what felt like no sleep at all. He squinted at a set of red numbers floating in the dark until he made out 5:15 AM. Toni was already sitting up next to him.

“It’s still dark outside,” he complained.

“That’s high school,” she said. “Don’t you remember?” She switched on the lamp on her bedside table, and he shut his eyes against the glare.

“Been a while.”

“You can stay here if you want. Get your beauty sleep.” She ruffled his hair.

He forced himself awake and pulled himself up. “No, I’ve got a long day ahead of me, too.”

She glanced down at his chest, and at where the sheet had fallen around his waist. “So, last night was…”

“Amazing?” he offered hopefully.

“Fun.” She bit her lip. “Hey, you’re not trying to sleep your way back to the top, are you?”

“Is it working?” he joked. “Don’t worry, your crown is safe. I’m not leader material. I never was.”


End file.
